Toss the guides. It makes it more scary and if you have good staffing, it shouldn't be an issue. However, if you have different corners or doorways that lead "backstage", you'll need guides to make sure people don't go back there. Or, post a security officer at those. My haunt has one path, and all the doors are locked.

Slash

*PM me if you have any questions*

-If you fail to plan, plan to fail.
-Don't drink the water in Mexico.
-America: Love it or Leave it
-In God We Trust, All Others Are Run Through NCIC
-Gun Control: Use Two Hands

Sometimes I wish my place was just one path and everything else locked up.
But people also come here and play hide & seek and the like and they get a big kick out discovering where the secret passage doors are and where they go, these events are almost always physically easier on me and stimulate return visits and regular tours often times.
These activities also make there be new ways to see and enjoy the same house.
Ever run a group through the house backwards? Entering the exit and leaving through the entrance?
I bet the customers would think it was a whole new place!

Yes, I have considered sending them through backwards. However, most of the scenes are faced in a certain way so that the scares are directed towards them, also, they would see some behind the scenes stuff (wiring, fog machines, unpainted walls) etc. if they came through backwards.

Slash

*PM me if you have any questions*

-If you fail to plan, plan to fail.
-Don't drink the water in Mexico.
-America: Love it or Leave it
-In God We Trust, All Others Are Run Through NCIC
-Gun Control: Use Two Hands

Remember that un-guided customers are more likely to break stuff, steal stuff, get lost, and get hurt.
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True but that is why we have actors, your actors should be looking out for that stuff. I remember working as a clown and some dumb butt tried taking 3 or 4 props out of the haunt. I was able to startle him and make him drop the props. I was then also able to get him out the E-Exit to security right outside on our break deck.

If your worried about stealling consider making your guides your new security guards. Also anyone going through your 90 degree haunt with a jacket on should get you wondering what they are doing.

Just curious, when you startled the crook and he dropped the props he was stealing, did he drunkenly giggle and use being drunk as his excuse?
This often seems to be the case here.
Some used to kick and pull on the skeleton rider I built on the wrecked motorcycle attached to the side of my car, my fantasy was to walk up behind them with a baseball bat , WHACK! them across the shoulder blades and then say, "Sorry, you were drunk!"
If that excuse is supposed to work for them, it should work for me too, right?